As the base stations for the cellular communication systems become smaller and smaller to picocells and femtocells demanding correspondingly smaller electronic components including filters, traditionally bulky filters are also desired to be correspondingly smaller while keeping the performance at optimum levels for blocking unwanted signals which can saturate the low noise amplifier as well as limit transmitted emission level to the FCC specifications. Traditionally, surface mount ceramic block filters have been used in picocell applications but these types of filters suffer from poor rejection (around 50 dB max) and high insertion loss performance limitations.